


Wheatley's Landing

by MyNameisChristmas



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Self-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-04
Updated: 2016-01-04
Packaged: 2018-05-11 19:40:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5639569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyNameisChristmas/pseuds/MyNameisChristmas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE PRIVATE--for a part of my backstory in a massive crossover game/AU my friends and I have for fun, but a couple of them were like hey! you should post that it's funny! So because it would just make it easier for them to read anyways I gave in to peer pressure.</p><p>Wheatley, who was previously lost in outer space after the events of Portal 2, got sucked through a wormhole or something and ended up in our dimension, crash-landing in my backyard and decimating it.<br/>This is not in any capacity an attempt at scientific accuracy because why the heck would it be anyway, so if you do read this please don't give me some shit about physics. Wheatley doesn't conform to scientific fact so why should I?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wheatley's Landing

I was alone in the house when the massive impact happened just far enough out back not to level the building.

Seeing as it looked and sounded like it did in Lilo and Stitch or Ben 10 naturally I had to investigate. I mean, to make sure nothing was broken.

I looked out my window and saw the crater that used to be my backyard had a little blackened ball of something in the middle of it. Like a beach ball, right?

Say goodbye to those shitty plastic lawn chairs.

When I stepped outside I swear I saw it move, like, a twitch, but then nothing else.

As I cast a glance around the scorched lawn around the edges of this side of the hole I thanked god it wasn’t any bigger than a beach ball.

How it held up in that little ball shape after flying into the ground fast enough to make a hole this big must have been a miracle. It had to be some space technology for sure.

Then it wiggled a little again.

Should I get closer? Probably not. Am I going to slide down into this dirty hole to see something that could probably blow up up close? Yes.

I skidded on the dirt (totally wrecking this pair of sneakers in the process I might add) until I reached sorta-level ground at the bottom, then -now less than 8 feet away from me- it twitched again, and let out a garbled computer-y sounding noise that turned into a disoriented moan.

I’m dead. I’m definitely going to die. I’m so sorry everyone, I was murdered by a beach ball from space. This is it.

Then what looked like an eye in the middle of it flickered open, and a dim blue light shone through the cracked lense; it rolled slowly from the ground to the sky and then jolted about a few times randomly until it locked onto me, and I froze.

Why did I freeze? Apparently because I want to die!

“I-it’s _you!_ ” It’s voice was still filled with static interference and more computer-startup-esque noises, but it sounded...like a nervous british guy..?

“Is it? Is it you?? _Is it really?_ Oh-I’m--no-I, I’m so sorry I-” He rattled off a bit but when I stood up straight and just stared back he looked like he’d noticed something.

“No, you’re not her. Bollocks. All you humans look the same to me, plus you’ve got the whole ponytail and all-WAIT--”

The glitches fazed out of his voice slowly but just now his ‘eye’ went from squinting to opening up completely, and the light got brighter.

“A human? Who’s not dead?? You’re not dead are you..?”

For some reason I looked myself up and down as if I wasn’t sure.

“No I’m pretty alive right now I think.”

He laughed like a time traveler who was just informed he landed in the exact time and place he’d been meaning to on his first test run.

“You’re alive! A living, breathin’ human that’s not--.. _Oh sweet day!_ Am I really back on earth?”

“Back?”

“Is this or is this not earth? I came from earth. ‘ve been gone for, who-knows how long, floatin’ like some satellite in the bloody middle o’ space--and now, now i’m on solid ground again I never thought I’d see the day!”

He seemed docile enough, if he was just happy to be here, so I got a little closer and sat down in the dirt next to the little meteor.

“This _is_ earth, and i’m Noel; I’m 16, and you destroyed my backyard when you came careening down out of the clouds.”

He gave me the once over again (I guess, if that light was his eye after all) and then looked me in the eye.

“Oh you have eyes like hers too. But you’re much shorter..”

A talking beach ball made of metal falls from the heavens and now _it’s_ calling me short too.

“Like whose?” He kept mentioning some woman, but it was funny I thought to ask that before something like, hey, _what the fuck are you?_

“She, I-...well, I could have sworn I knew her name...but-” He squinted a little too hard in thought and made his whole body twitch to the left and let out a few sparks, to which I responded “Don’t hurt yourself kid”, when I should have, you know, moved away from the thing that showed steadily more capability of setting me on fire.

He sighed and seemed to relax again, worried as I was that he might pop or even explode.

“Let’s just say, there’s something I needed to tell her.”

Mysterious, but i’ll let it slide, I have more questions. So many more.

“Alright, so, let’s try this.” I started slowly, still figuring out where I was going with this in my head, “I’ll ask you a question, and if and when you give me a decent answer, you can ask me one if you want, and I’ll answer.”

“Sounds reasonable, luv.” I wanna say he’d’ve smiled if he had a mouth, I guess he smiled with his eyes-..eye. It was pretty cute actually.

“God-..why are you so british? Christ the lord-”

“I just sound like the voicebank they programmed me with I guess--My turn!”

“NO THAT WASN’T--ughfuck, fine, what’s your question?” I grumbled, crossing my legs where I was sitting.

“Can you take me inside? It’s awfully bright out here and I’m not in the best shape of m’life..”

“Wait--how can you see out of the hole at this angle?” I looked back over my shoulder and leaned forward to try and see at his level.

“You said I ruined your backyard, which means your house is just there, yeah? You didn’t answer my question, though; I suggest as a penalty, you take me inside.”

I sat up and looked back at the roof (since I couldn’t see the whole house, i’m too small), fighting with my sense of danger and the strong urge to bring the little british ball up to my room and make him my best friend.

“Only if you promise you won’t blow up, or set anything on fire, or otherwise make a mess. Oh-also, I’m probably gonna have to disinfect you since you fell from the sky. God knows where you’ve been. You’re not gonna short out if I wipe you off with a baby wipe right?”

“Likely not.”

“Oh god I just realized I could probably be taken away by the government for this, or the men in black! Oh my god! What if the men in black are real and they’re looking for you?!”

Admittedly I could have my concerns a bit more in order.

It looked like I scared him though, either he knows exactly what i’m talking about, or he has no idea.

“Men in black is a movie about secret agents who keep the peace between humans on earth and aliens from the rest of the universe.”

“Oh that sounds like fun.”

“Do you wanna see it? I could probably look it up-”

“I wouldn’t mind that at all.”

“Wait a second-”

I shook my head, what exactly is going on right now? Did I just offer to find a bootleg copy of Men in Black on the internet to watch with a robot who claims to be from outer space?

Or I guess just to have been to outer space, he says he’s from here.

“I’m getting distracted.”

“That you are, mate, you’re supposed to be taking me inside.”

“You promise not to make a mess?”

“Swear.”

I meant to pick him up but when my hand got a little closer to the grip above his eye I realized he was still insanely fucking hot.

_Meteor!! Hello! I’m a smart I know my science--speed is hot!_

“..Maybe I should go get oven mitts.”

 

When I got back with some sunglasses to protect my eyes if he shot off a spark again, and my mom’s little christmas tree oven mitts, I tried picking him up again and he was mostly alright to carry. Like, comfortable, but not light.

Really hot even with the gloves though, good call on those, but now i’m gonna have to put him in an oven-safe pan or something to wait for him to cool off, and then wash both. Great.

The hard part was climbing out of the crater without even using my hands, but thankfully when I skidded down I left a couple somethings like foot-holds in the dirt.

It was a miracle frankly I managed to pull all this together, I thought, as I set him on the patio and went to get said pan.

“Ah man, you turned my mom’s only oven mitts black, she’s gonna kick my ass for this-”

“Your mom’s? Wait-oh my god!” He chuckled again as he watched me come back to lift him into the casserole dish.

“What.”

“16 you said? Why you’re still just a lil one then aren’t you? A juvenile, that’s adorable! No wonder you’re so small!”

“ _Haha_ space rock--I’m a teenager, I’m definitely not a kid anymore.” I huffed, escorting the both of us inside and onto the kitchen floor as safely as possible.

“16 years out of nearly 100 and you think you’re not a kid anymore? _Tha’s precious.”_

 _“Don’t patronize me beach ball,_ I _will_ throw you back into that hole.”

That was a bluff, a big one, he was way too cool to throw back where the U.S. government might find him.

Speaking of the U.S. government, I hope they’re stupid enough to believe whatever made that ridiculous sound and mark in my backyard disintegrated on impact. That’s how space stuff works, right?

“The name’s not _beach ball_.” He replied self-righteously, “It’s Wheatley.”

“Okay _Wheatley,_ behave yourself or be exiled into the pit.”

“How cold.”

“You’re lucky i’m gonna be home alone for a good few more _hours_.” I sighed, I needed to find a way to cool him off faster, and also a way to bide my time, “Maybe we will watch that movie after all.”

 

So there I was, sitting next to a giant fan pointed at a robot that probably really fell from outer space, watching Men in Black on my laptop.

Definitely the craziest story I could tell anyone yet.

When I was lugging the fan into the middle of the kitchen I asked him just what he was..let’s see if I remember right…

He said he was a spherical personality core from Aperture Science. A standard housing for an artificial intelligence.

He definitely had quite the personality, so it sounded plausible enough to me, but he couldn’t tell me where Aperture Science was, just that it was a large company that did a whole lot of testing, but didn’t render a whole lot of _results._

“What did you say that man’s name is?”

“Who, Will Smith?”

This robot from space is asking me about Will Smith.

“I like him.”

“He’s a great comedian, a lot of people like him. I like him.”

 

After the movie I tried prodding at him again to see if he cooled off by enough.

I guess since the air outside was a little chilly too this whole thing had worked out, he was still really warm, but, manageable; so I left the oven mitts and casserole dish on the ground, put my laptop on the counter and went to get those baby wipes.

This had to have gotten as weird as it could have been at this point right? Nothing could make this weirder after I sat down and watched a whole 90s movie with an AI I just met.

It kinda felt like we were already friends now though.

“You said there was more of that, right? another movie?” Wheatley called to me as I wandered back into the room.

“Uh, yeah.” I knelt down on the ground next to him again and pulled a wipe out of the package, “There’s two more movies and an animated TV series I think.”

I did NOT just make this robot a fan of Men in Black.

Okay but, who can blame me, Men in Black is a pretty great movie. I should have him watch some more stuff.

“So if you were floating around out there before you came crashing down here are you gonna tell me how a little round robot from earth got launched into deep space?”

He looked down and took his sweet time before deciding to answer that question, it seemed like something was troubling him.

But regardless of that, I interrupted him with an obnoxious exclamation of “Oh holy shit you’re white” when I started rubbing him off with a baby wipe and found that the thick dark coating was just soot and dirt, and though his casing was scuffed and dented, he was indeed almost entirely white under all that mess. What can I say? I’m easily startled.

“What-yes, I’m white, as opposed to?”

“Well, you were covered in a layer of grime I guess, you looked the opposite until a second ago.”

It was on there really good though, at least, it was hardened and I had to really scrape and chip it off.

“Eugh, that’s pleasant.”

“You’re telling me.”

I was making a mess of this poor casserole dish. I thought I’d let him know.

“You’re gonna ruin this dish _AND_ the oven mitts now. Also I think I pulled something lugging you out of that hole.”

He sighed, “But think on this, _I’m_ a living being, and you can buy new oven mitts.”

Oh like I’d been wanting to rescue myself a new talking pet.

Actually that was exactly what I wanted. But that wasn’t happening.

“And what now you have nowhere to go and I have to take care of you?”  
He chuckled again.

“Well, I don’t need food, or water, or a constant temperature like you organic creatures. And I’ve been nothing but pleasant haven’t I?”

Now I swear he was trying to give me a big puppy dog...eye, but it was a tough call to make since he was just a ball with a lens on it.

“You’re actually asking me to look after you? You’re all...broken! And don’t you need to get back where you came from or something?”  
Awh, no….no, I _didn’t_ hurt his feelings..

_I hurt his feelings didn’t I?_

“I don’t even know if there _is_ somewhere left I could go back to, kiddo. That and if there was I’m sure they don’t wanna see me again.”

“You got some mysterious tragic backstory? I’m not biting.”

I am _so_ biting, if it was possible i’d be eating right out of this guy’s hand. I HAVE to know what his story is, and I definitely wanna be his friend. But, can I really keep him here? I guess I just have to talk to my parents about it. They’ll probably just think of him as some kind of toy.

“I know you don’t wanna throw me back out into the cold! In that big ugly hole in the ground??” He whined; that big ugly hole used to be my backyard, buck-o.

And it was like 63 degrees out. Fahrenheit.

“..Fine, but, you owe me for this. And you don’t get to be offended by how my family reacts to you.”

_“Woohoo!!”_

So once he was all cleaned off, or at least, once what was left wouldn’t come off for the life of me, I let him dry for a second while I threw away all the wipes and black stuff, and then I scooped him up in my arms (way easier to just hug him than to hold him up by those little bars) and took him upstairs.

“You mean it though? You’ll take care of me here..? Just like that?”

He was so excited, I guess he wasn’t used to hospitality or something, which was funny given that he so blatantly demanded it.

“I guess I don’t see why not, it’s not like you have arms or legs to get into trouble with. Promise not to try and overthrow humanity?”

“I’m not quite sure what you mean..”

I shrugged, shuffling up the stairs, “Like, secretly be some kind of weapon of technological warfare that doesn’t have to be able to move to bring down society. Or, just my Wi-Fi router. No hostile takeovers, Promise?”

“..I promise.”

I pushed the door to my room open with my foot and tossed him onto the bed.

“You hesitated.”

He stammered and shook his head quickly, sinking a bit in the pillows and stuffed-animals, “O-only because that sounds _horrible..”_


End file.
